Distracted driving laws FAQs
Those who have followed my writing as of late probably noticed I’ve felt a need to write about the problem of distracted driving, including shortcomings with some distracted driving laws in my state (Minnesota) and other states.
Here, I thought I’d sum up the main points of these articles in a brief FAQ.
What is distracted driving?
As defined by the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), distracted driving is any activity that diverts attention from driving. Unsurprisingly, a main cause of distracted driving is multitasking with cellphones in the car, which leads to thousands of traffic accidents and fatalities every year.
Why do cellphones distract from driving?
It’s easy to see why texting while driving is dangerous. It’s not as obvious why talking on a phone while driving is also dangerous. Nevertheless, cellphones distract drivers by diverting their attention: namely, from one task (the driving) to another task (the phone conversation). In effect, talking on a cellphone while driving is as dangerous as drinking and driving.
Is driving while using hands-free devices safe?
It was once thought that cellphones distract from driving because drivers are fidgeting with their phones in the car. By this line of reasoning, if drivers used headsets instead of holding their phones, they’d be able to drive safely. However, decades of studies show that driving with hands-free devices is no safer than driving with hand-held phones. Accident rates are the same for both.
This is likely why hands-free laws—that is, distracted driving laws that only ban hand-held phones, but not hands-free devices—don’t appear to improve road safety. To date, there’s no convincing evidence that hands-free laws reduce traffic accidents or fatalities.
What’s the root cause of distracted driving?
As research on hands-free devices shows, what distracts drivers isn’t necessarily physical interference from holding the phone. Rather, it’s mental interference from having a phone conversation. In other words, the root cause of distracted driving is cognitive interference, not manual interference.
Why do cellphones distract, but not car passengers?
Hold the phone! When drivers have conversations with car passengers, those in-person conversations don’t necessarily distract from driving. So why do cellphone conversations with someone outside the car distract drivers, but not in-person conversations with somebody inside the car? Because talking to passengers in the car is not the same cognitive task as talking to someone on the phone.
Here’s why. Talking together in a car, both driver and passenger have attention on the same situation: the car, the road, and surrounding traffic. (In cognitive science, this kind of task-based attention is called “situation awareness.”) Indeed, because driver and passenger share awareness of the car, road, and traffic, they can help each other heed attention to the same driving situation.
In contrast, our minds must work harder to process conversations if the converser isn’t physically present.
Think of it this way. Human beings didn’t evolve to divide conscious attention between eyes and ears. Consequently, when driver and passenger talk together in the same car, their eyes and ears share awareness of the same situation. But when the driver talks to someone else over a cellphone, each converser hears one situation and sees another. The result is divided attention (or less “situation awareness”).
How can we stop distracted driving?
As drivers, we can take responsibility by not making phone calls while driving. Tech companies can help—indeed, many already have—by developing apps that silence cellphones whenever users are behind the wheel. Finally, lawmakers can do the right thing by passing distracted driving laws that ban most uses of cellphones in the car, including headsets. (Obviously, they should make reasonable exceptions, such as emergency calls and GPS devices.)
Fortunately, discussions about comprehensive distracted driving laws are happening. In fact, the same week MinnPost published my article critiquing Minnesota’s hands-free law, the BBC released a news report about British MPS criticizing distracted driving laws in the UK. Lately, they’ve warned that hands-free laws give the “misleading impression” it’s safe to use headsets behind the wheel, despite evidence to the contrary. In turn, they’re calling for distracted driving laws that ban the use of hands-free devices while driving. I also believe that’s the direction we all need to go.
As a final moral mediation, we might ask, what’s more important at the end of the day: technological convenience at any cost, or the value of human life? Granted, not answering the cellphone in the car entails giving up a bit of technological convenience. Still, giving priority to the value of our lives—including the lives of our loved ones and neighbors—ought to make that trade-off well worth it.